


blinded by science

by rjosettes



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Human, F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-07 02:56:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16845769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rjosettes/pseuds/rjosettes
Summary: Kira has a problem.Well, actually, she has something like twenty problems, the worksheet in front of her blank except for her name in careful print at the top.





	blinded by science

**Author's Note:**

> Backing up this little fic I posted a few years ago on my blog for Kira rarepair week and Multiamory March! Very brief background Erica/Stiles.

Kira has a problem.

Well, actually, she has something like twenty problems, the worksheet in front of her blank except for her name in careful print at the top. Her shoulders had sagged with relief when the disinterested man at the desk up front turned out to be a substitute. She escaped the hourly expectation to introduce herself to a room full of kids who don’t care and found her own seat at an empty table behind the full rows of seats. For about two minutes, she’d gotten to relax.

Her tablemate shows up with a tardy slip that their temporary teacher barely glances at, handing him a thick stack of papers to hand around. Kira tries to be at least a little subtle, watching from the corner of her eye as he counts out enough for each row leader to pass back. He’s tall and round-cheeked, eyebrows arching when he catches sight of her and keeps two worksheets rather than one before he heads right toward her.

It’s been ten minutes and she hasn’t managed to do anything since. Her brand new (to her, at least – the edges worn) textbook is open in front of her, pencil poised and ready. The work is only a review of the first semester of physics, stuff she could recite in her sleep after the constant pop quizzes in New York. The high school only a few blocks away had clever shirts, printed upside down with every equation they could need; her dad laughed for ten minutes when her teacher’s midterm study guide proclaimed in bold italic type that they would not be working from cheat sheets in college.

“Page seventy-four.” Kira snaps her gaze away from the upside-down name on the top of his paper. Vernon. “For the first four problems. One of them’s straight out of the examples.” His voice is warm but quiet, deep brown eyes still trained on his own work. “And eighty-nine for the next three.”

She whispers, “Thanks,” as softly as she can while she turns the pages, and twice more when he directs her after. Once she’s started, the work is comes easily, but she doesn’t have the heart to tell him that she knows what she’s doing when he’s been so nice. Instead, she pauses after every set of problems, biting her lip while she waits for him to notice her pencil’s gone still. They finish at almost the same time, five minutes before her schedules says the bell will ring. He takes both papers to the front for them, collecting a few more as he makes his way there, stacking them on top of the early hand-ins – the redhead’s, taken up by her Abercrombie model friend with his own.

When the bell rings, she gathers her bag and binder slowly, waiting out the rush so she doesn’t have to push through the crowd. Vernon hangs back with her, digging through his booksack and coming up with a brown paper bag. “You have lunch this period?” he asks, his voice deeper but just as warm at this volume. “I can show you the caf.”

There’s a map stapled into the front cover of each other notebooks and binders, but she nods at him anyway, tongue thick in her mouth. She watches the way his arms stretch at the hems of his sleeves while he hefts both straps over his shoulders and leads the way. It isn’t far, but there’s a turn that Kira wouldn’t even have noticed for all the disjointed groups of underclassmen blocking her view. Vernon can see over all but the tallest of them, though, and he offers her the loose end of one strap to hold onto while they wind their way between unmoving shoulders and feet placed just right to trip over.

He takes her through the line – apparently, the bag is only holding a couple of cupcakes from home – and recommends the pizza over the sloppy mess they seem to be calling lasagna. The salad and appple that come with it don’t look half bad. Maybe there’s hope for public school food, after all. The table they’re beelining for has four people at it already. Three, really, considering two of them are attached at the mouth, a mess of lips and tongue.

“Really,” Vernon says flatly, and the girl pulls away, smiling and unashamed.

“I didn’t see him this morning. I never complain about you and Scott.”

The tiny spark of hope in Kira’s belly is extinguished. She watches Vernon skirt around the edge of the table, lean into another boy – Scott. They all laugh, comfortable and familiar, at the feather-light kisses he drops on Scott’s crooked jaw. He’s handsome, almost absurdly so, with soft-looking hair and a bright smile that he turns on her without pause.

* * *

“So, how do you know Boyd?”

Kira keeps her secret safe through three weeks and five dates. Not that she realized they were dates until the third time she found herself alone with the boys who may or may not be her boyfriends, now. She’s too skittish to ask, afraid to scare either of them away. If one goes, she’ll lose both, she knows. That’s the last thing that she wants, especially in a school full of strangers who don’t seem interested in learning her name. She can afford to be shy about this, wait for one of them to speak up.

The physics study sessions, though, are getting a little ridiculous. Scott doesn’t even take physics, focusing on biology and chemistry because he wants to go to veterinary school after college. He still helps, though, checking her practice problems against the book or against Boyd’s answers. She never purposefully gets an answer wrong – it’s like lying, makes her stomach squirm with unease- but she plays fast and loose with the math, not checking over her work before she hands it over. He’s so encouraging when she only misses one or two from the set, showing her paper off to Boyd.

Boyd is walking through her through the latest lesson himself, though, slow and simple, building from everything else he’s been so patient with her about. It’s too much, finally, watching him search her face for a sense of recognition, of getting it.

“I know all of this,” she blurts, flushing.

She gets a blinding smile in return. “Yeah? You’re getting it?”

“No, I mean…” Kira hesitates, glancing from him to Scott, labeling the insides of one animal or another, tongue still poked between his lips even when he looks up at them. “I had an A in physics last semester. At my old school. I like it. The math’s not that hard, and they made us memorize all of the equations.”

Boyd’s smile falters, lips pressing tight into a straight line as he takes it in. Kira’s lungs seize up, thoughts racing to the inhaler zipped into Scott’s backpack and the other, safely stashed in the top drawer of Boyd’s bedside table. Just as her heart’s threatening to thump out of her chest, the silence snaps, replaced with Boyd’s rich belly laugh.

“You let us treat you like you had no idea?” Scott asks. “I’m sorry. We should’ve known, you’re really smart -”

“It’s alright,” she assures him, hardly able to believe he’s apologizing for something caused by her own dishonesty. “Not everyone’s that’s smart is good at school. I kind of actually do need help in English. If either of you has some thoughts on Ms. Blake’s essay due on Friday.”

When he kisses her, Boyd is still laughing, pleased noises pressed to her lips. She dissolves into giggles before too long, feeling Scott’s fingers walking up her socks before he flops on his belly to join them. The physics textbook falls to the floor, papers fluttering across the carpet, and they ignore it.

It’s Erica who turns out to be the English tutor of their group, her wild, expansive vocabulary a little too flamboyant for Kira’s writing. They work things out, though, barely a few feet from Boyd help Scott with his history flashcards, from Stiles stressing over his photocopy of Lydia Martin’s math notes. Her A in physics is pretty solid again this semester, her high C in English climbing every day. More than her grades, though, she feels her spirits rising. She still has to put up with her dad’s horrible teasing and obviousness every day at school, her mother’s tendency toward asking fifteen questions every time she sees Boyd or Scott. Most people still don’t know her name. For now, though, she figures that’s just find. She’ll gladly answer to ‘Boyd and Scott’s girlfriend’.


End file.
